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I am planning to do a small game using only FLOSS software (Free Libre and Open Source Software like Godot, Blender, Krita...).

I am going to put it on Github with an MIT license so everyone can download it and modify it.

I wanted the name of my game to be "Seed" but I saw that there was already a game called like that

My question is: do I need to worry about creating an open source game who uses the same name as a proprietary one?

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Copyright law still applies, even to open source works; in fact the GNU GPL even uses copyright law as part of its formulation, and is itself copyrighted. So being FLOSS does not give a get-out clause from copyright law, in either direction. You can still be sued for copyright (or trademark) infringement.

As always with legal questions, if you want legal advice that will hold up in court, you will need to ask a lawyer.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Definitely agree with the talking to a lawyer bit (no reason not to at least do proper homework if paying a lawyer is not worth it for a hobby project); however, the first and easiest thing to do would be to check and see if the game development company even has such a trademark registered or stated on either. If they didn't trademark the name, then it doesn't really matter (assuming they even could trademark a single word name without strong restrictions on where and how it applies). Also, depending on the size of the game dev company one could ask them in writing if they care. \$\endgroup\$
    – user64742
    Commented Jan 12, 2020 at 20:42

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